Saturday, February 19, 2011

Tea Time

There was a time when tea was elevated to an art form....not sold in nondescript boxes in grocery stores.

Tea was pressed into intricate molds, dried and sold in brick form.

Designs varied, but they were all ornate... and they smelled wonderful!

Some pressed teas were a little more creative and took on other shapes.

This one is in the shape of a coin and could be hung as a decorative object.

China did not monopolize the market...this is Russian tea.

You can still buy these today, just usually not in your supermarket. I have had this brick of tea for over ten years and decided to treat it as sculptural art and not becoming wet tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. Let me know if you have seen other designs of tea bricks. I am fascinated with their beauty!

Dear Theresa, How can I live to be this old and not have been aware of this wonderful tea brewing tradition? I love these blocks of tea. You always bring the best and the most unusual to us. Thank you.

This is amazing, Theresa! It got me to thinking that it's been a long time since I've eaten anything, other than chocolate, that came from a mold. My mother had copper molds hanging in her kitchen and used them with regularity. This posting is a nice companion piece to the one you did on bread creations ...

Yes! "Art is the answer. Not industrialization..." this was the basis of the Arts and Crafts Movement as well. Maybe we can return to that sensibility? At least for a bit, anyway, through fabulous blogs like this one by Theresa, as well as Ornamentalist (Lynne Rutter).

My gosh I am 73 yrs. old and have never seen this Tea in a brick. They really are artistic looking.Very few Americans do the tea thing with loose tea. My Grandmother steeped her tea and read tea leaves to us, What fun.

Theresa, before I read the text I assumed that the relief images were of INK blocks. Sumi-e ink (Japanese) and Chinese ink are also sold in decorative blocks. Perhaps a follow up post on them. And then scramble us all by using both ink and tea blocks to make very dark liquids and see if we readers can tell the difference....

I love to learn something new. Thanks to your post i just did. I have never encountered this type of brick tea and am an avid shopper for tea...have been known to spend hours in China, tasting, selecting, looking, smelling teas.Now I will be focusing my search on these particular brick form of tea.New to your blog, will be checking it regularly.

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